Erick and Rich chat about the coronavirus pandemic's effect on hardware sales, surveying your clients about when they'll return to the office (if ever), and the recent spike in people who say they're locked down at home with a ghost.

Get an edge on the competition

With each issue packed full of powerful news, reviews, analysis, and advice targeting IT channel professionals, ChannelPro-SMB will help you cultivate your SMB customers and run your business more profitably.

Speaking with ChannelPro at last week’s meeting of the TechSelect partner community, U.S. sales leader Marc McClure (pictured) discussed plans to grow his team of account execs, technical specialists, and other partner-facing staff by 10 to 15 percent.
- read more

A new sales team, managed security service catalog, vendor incubation program, and training facility are key ways the distributor will fulfill its part of that bargain, according to security executive Alex Ryals (pictured).
- read more

The new Analytics and IoT Solution Factory, like the previously introduced Cloud Solution Factory, is designed to help partners capitalize on a rapidly growing next-generation IT market faster, more easily, and with less risk.
- read more

Partner program updates from Dell Technologies, new Azure services from Microsoft, and a Brazilian parrot who refused to be a stool pigeon are among the stories we’ve just now managed to tell you about.
- read more

Mere minutes after returning home from the Tech Data Endpoint Symposium, Rich Freeman has thoughts to share about it with co-host Erick Simpson, who has thoughts of his own about bundling managed services. Then both hosts ponder the meaning of a calendar from Oracle Park that magically erases Salesforce's giant HQ from the San Francisco skyline.
- read more

Partners can expect access to more presales subject matter experts, self-serve options for configuring as-a-service hardware and software contracts, and a steady drumbeat of talk about mobile activations.
- read more

The distributor will invest heavily this year in driving awareness of the subscription-priced procurement offering and helping partners already familiar with it sell the program more effectively, according to Senior Vice President Linda Rendleman (pictured).
- read more

As the distributor transforms itself to meet the demands of a new era in IT, it’s urgently encouraging its partners to do the same. Last week’s Channel Link conference provided the latest venue for those efforts.
- read more

The six new subscription-priced offerings, most of which are delivered in partnership with up-and-coming providers, are designed to fill niches not supported by name-brand security vendors.
- read more

Scheduled to ship at the end of October, the new system combines public and private cloud infrastructure with migration, configuration, administration, and cost-optimization assistance from HPE’s Pointnext professional services unit.
- read more